Day 23 Albania to Austria

Really guys, "Do the CAT"?

After assuring myself that sleeping right next to the gate would wake me up without need for an alarm I managed to sleep through about half the plane boarding before I woke up and joined the line.  A brief hour and a half flight later I was released into Austria!  

Awe inspiring.

 The Vienna airport is near the city and a train, called the CAT (City-Airport transfer), provides a 15 minute nonstop route into downtown Vienna.  After customs, and wandering for a while until I located short-term luggage storage, and negotiating with the ticket machine I headed in to the city.  I admit it I headed out into the city and spied a Starbucks, after finding out they had wifi I got a latte and did some checking in with folks.  Fully caffeinated I felt ready to explore.  Vienna is a truly breathtaking city, so much history!  The flight landed early so by the time I got into Vienna proper it was only about 8:30 in the morning and the city was just waking up, people were readying their shops for the day, restaurants were putting out the sidewalk seating, and the streets were fairly empty.  It was nice to watch the city wake up. 

Even the graffiti is cool.

I wandered around for a good 4 hours amazed by everything I saw.  I didn’t do any research, had no idea what is in Vienna and had no must see or do items on my list, it was a day free of expectations or planning.  One thing that really impressed me was the amount of bike lanes and how respected they are.  So many people biking everywhere was really heartening to see.  Also there were bikes all over available to rent, a great idea for such a heavily tourism based area of the city.  Though I thought about renting a bike I decided to continue my aimless wandering on foot.  As a Dr. Who fan I’m not sure how anyone in Vienna gets any sleep with so many weeping angels everywhere.   I got myself good and lost wandering wherever my feet took me.  Eventually I bought some kind of meat patty from a deli, which the nice woman put on a roll with delicious mustard.  Before the day was out I had also enjoyed a schnitzel from a stand as is only proper in Vienna. 

All hail the sun!

When I felt suitably lost and in need of relocating the train station I started asking people for directions, everyone was so kind and polite.  I started getting slightly worried about my plan until I turned a corner and recognized art over a bridge from earlier in the day, I was mere blocks from the train station.  I retraced my steps from earlier seeing the city awake where it had been asleep earlier, it was nice to see some streets in two very different ways.  Eventually I had to make my return to the airport, reclaim my luggage and board my flight for Tokyo!

I couldn't resist the guy on the bike.

There's no reason to get a big head about it.